Doctor Who_ The Turing Test Part 20

I remembered Elgar's eyes, melting.

'No,' I said.

'Ah. I see.' And he trotted off toward Greene. I suspect he asked the same question, because Greene just laughed. Then he sobered up, and I heard him say, 'You know nothing about love, Turing.'

'I do! I love ' Turing didn't say it, but glanced in the Doctor's direction.

'And I did did love,' said Greene. 'I loved her, and he tricked me into killing her.' love,' said Greene. 'I loved her, and he tricked me into killing her.'

Turing went on to talk to one of the strangers, perhaps asking the same question. I sidled up to Greene.

'Who did you kill?' I asked quietly.

'Does it matter?' he said, disgusted.

I found myself telling him about the bombing missions. He watched me, his face alert, and nodded from time to time.

'You didn't love them, though,' he said at the end.

'Who?'

'The people you've killed. You didn't love them. Didn't know them.'

I wanted to say it didn't make any difference, but I knew it did. We were walking through an avenue of corpses, through the stinking remains of a charnel house, and it was only Elgar's death that mattered to me, because I had been responsible.

'Who did did you kill?' I asked Greene again. But he didn't answer. I found out only when I read his story, in this ma.n.u.script. you kill?' I asked Greene again. But he didn't answer. I found out only when I read his story, in this ma.n.u.script.

At last we were back at the church. The windows were gone, and the smell inside was even more appalling than that outside, but it was possible to get into the crypt, and through the trapdoor at the bottom of the crypt into the strangers' light-andmusic chamber.

We a.s.sembled, the Doctor, Turing, Greene, and I, and then we noticed the strangers were gone. There had been no light, no music, no heavenly surge of power or the screaming of engines. They were, clearly and simply, gone. And the Doctor was, clearly and simply, still there.

He crumpled slowly, like a flower without water. 'They left me behind,' he muttered.

I knew then that this had been the Doctor's sole motive all along. He had wanted to get away: I'd known it from the beginning. As I've said, all I hadn't realized was just how far he'd wanted to go.

'They left me behind!' shrieked the Doctor.

I felt the gut-kick of anger, a terrible, avenging anger. I'd killed Elgar, was still risking my own life, because of this man's ego. He had believed himself to be a G.o.d, or at least someone who belonged above the sky and, G.o.d help me, I'd believed in him. Now, in one of those searing flashes that precede death, either physical or moral, I saw that he'd had no more idea which side had been right than I had.

I could tell that he was working that out too. He was looking around like a man who realizes that the prison cell is still there, that he was only dreaming of green fields and yellow, b.u.t.tery sunsets.

'What am I going to do?' he asked, still curled up like a defeated child, apparently addressing his boots.

'Never mind,' said Turing. 'Things will get better here.'

Greene snorted. Turing looked daggers at him, and put his arm around his beloved. 'The machines I'm building will think like people. Now I know that it can be done nothing will stop me. In fifty years' time a hundred by then they'll work alongside humans with them. It might even be possible to integrate computers with the mind itself! And they'll talk to each other by radio anyone speaking to anyone, anywhere just imagine it! And all the information we'll break all the codes, all the barriers and we'll know everything there won't be any more hatred or misunderstanding or war.'

It must have been a wonderful moment for him, as he unwrapped his promises like a list of Christmas presents for a kid. Then the Doctor spoiled it. He uncurled himself and looked up.

'No you won't,' he said, his voice a hollow whisper. 'I think I've been there. I can almost remember '

'I think it's better to be human,' commented Greene, getting the discussion back on to his railroad track just when it was getting interesting. 'I've never wanted to be G.o.d.'

'Never?' asked Turing. 'Oh, no, Graham. I've read your novels. You might not want to be G.o.d but you enjoy speaking on his behalf.'

'And you don't?' sneered Greene. 'The great mathematician? The all-important man to the war effort? The man who's going to build the future? Don't tell me there haven't been moments when you've felt as if the secrets of the universe were yours to command.'

Turing flinched, like a child about to be punched, then stuttered, 'S s o what? I don't tell other people how to live!'

'Stop it, you two!' bawled the Doctor. 'They've gone, don't you understand that? There never were any G.o.ds, just strangers in robes who wanted something. And we killed someone I killed a man '

'You said he wasn't a man!' yelled Turing.

Greene and I looked at each other. For Turing of all people to worry about whether what we'd killed was 'truly human' when it was obvious obvious But neither of us said anything. It wasn't worth it.

The Doctor walked up to me, put his hands on my shoulders lightly. There were tears on his cheeks.

'I've killed so many people,' he whispered.

I nodded, because I had killed people too. Long before he had made me kill Elgar. And I had seen their bodies all around me, in the burning streets of Dresden, in the corpse we had dressed in the Doctor's clothes and sent on its way.

'But never like this,' the Doctor went on. 'Never without a cause.' His nose was running, too. 'I just wanted to escape '

I knew that feeling, too. 'There are never any causes good enough,' I said.

It was dumb comfort. The words meant nothing to him. They didn't mean that much to me.

There was a long silence like that, the Doctor with his arms on my shoulders, Turing looking at us with a slight frown on his face, Greene with his hands in his pockets, looking up.

Then Greene said, 'Have you noticed something?' He gestured at the ceiling.

I looked and saw that the Deco curves of metal and stone had gone. There was just damp stone, crudely arched quite a small chamber, lit by a single beam from the doorway. An electric flashlight, I realized: Turing must have been carrying it.

'It was a projection!' exclaimed Turing. 'They must have a means of controlling matter and energy! Or perhaps just light ' He began playing with his hands, as if counting on his fingers.

'That's not the point,' said Greene.

Our eyes met. 'The point is,' I said, 'we're in a damp hole under a burning city in an enemy country. How the h.e.l.l do we get home?'

'That's not the point either.' Greene began to move, restlessly. The Doctor turned to look at him.

'The point is ' the Doctor began.

Greene nodded.

The Doctor rubbed his hands together. 'The point is, it's time for the killing to stop. There's nothing any of us can do about what we have done. We can't bring the dead back to life. They're gone and they had to go. Whatever you think of me, whatever I think of myself, there wasn't any doubt about that.'

Greene and I exchanged another glance. Both of us felt, I think, that he was talking about something 'bigger' than the immediate affair. Neither of us felt inclined to ask what it was, because we already knew the answer: he had forgotten, he was forgetting, he was determined to forget.

As if in confirmation of this, the Doctor rubbed his hands together briskly, and that insouciant smile lit up his face. 'But we're here,' he said. 'We're four fit, able-bodied men, and there are people up there who are injured and dying and in need of our help.' He started toward the door, in his ordinary, water-soiled clothes, his feet clicking on the ordinary stone. 'Come on!'

Turing scurried after him. Greene and I followed.

'Do you think you'll ever want to speak for G.o.d, Mr h.e.l.ler?' Greene muttered as he pa.s.sed.

'I don't think so.'

'Don't be so sure. You sound like the type.' He winked.

The Doctor led us up, into the fire that was not the fire of salvation but the sort that burns, with smoke and hurt and tortured bodies and death. He walked arm in arm with Turing, and they talked, probably about miracles and the mysteries of the universe, but I couldn't hear them any more. And anyway, it was probably all in code.

About the Authors

Turing, Alan Mathison (191254) English mathematician and computer pioneer, born in London. He made important contributions to the philosophy of mathematics, particularly through his paper, 'Computable Numbers', published in 1936. He devised the original concept for a 'universal machine'. He made important contributions to the design and programming of early electronic computers. He derived a test, known as 'the Turing Test', which enables an operator to decide whether a computing machine is the equivalent of a human basically, he requires that there be no distinction between the replies of the computer and the replies of the human. Later commentators have pointed out that this test is an ideal: a perfect theory, but impossible to put into practice. How long would you have to talk, before you were sure? Turing committed suicide at Wilmslow, Ches.h.i.+re. n.o.body knows why.

Greene, (Henry) Graham (190491) English novelist, born in Berkhamsted, Hertfords.h.i.+re. He converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1926. His major novels, notably The Power and the Glory The Power and the Glory (1940), (1940), The End of the Affair The End of the Affair (1951), and (1951), and A Burnt-Out Case A Burnt-Out Case (1961), deal with religious issues. He also wrote several plays, film scripts (notably, (1961), deal with religious issues. He also wrote several plays, film scripts (notably, The Third Man The Third Man, 1950), short stories and essays, as well as three volumes of autobiography. His role as a spymaster in World War Two, during which he was for some of the time under the direction of the traitor Kim Philby, has contributed a great deal to the authenticity of his spy fiction.

h.e.l.ler, Joseph (192399) US novelist, born in New York City. He served with the US Air Force in World War Two, and his wartime experience forms the background for his famous antiwar novel, Catch-22 Catch-22 (1961), which describes the evils of war using an unremitting black irony. In later life he became, reputedly, a near-recluse, but in fact maintained a wide circle of personal and literary friends he just didn't like the press very much. (1961), which describes the evils of war using an unremitting black irony. In later life he became, reputedly, a near-recluse, but in fact maintained a wide circle of personal and literary friends he just didn't like the press very much.

Smith, Dr John X (editor) (???? ????). A wanderer and philosopher, lost in the twentieth century of a human civilisation that he doesn't think is his any more, because two hearts beat in his chest, and two minds run in his brain, or maybe more than two, stretching away into a very strange distance. Lacking memory of his past, he possesses nonetheless self-knowledge, and a terrible understanding of the world which, sometimes, he just can't bear. He is waiting for the year 2001, which is when something new is going to happen to him, according to the piece of faded paper he has carried for more years than he remembers. He hopes he will be ready.

About the (other) Author

Paul Leonard lives in St George, Bristol, with his partner Eve, three cats and many many plants. He has recently discovered that there is a life that doesn't involve sitting in front of a computer making up things, but he isn't quite sure whether this new sensation is for real yet. Further news will follow, perhaps.